Rampjaar


In Dutch history, the year 1672 is referred to as the Rampjaar. In May 1672, following the outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War and its peripheral conflict the Third Anglo-Dutch War, France, supported by Münster and Cologne, invaded and nearly overran the Dutch Republic. At the same time, it faced the threat of an English naval blockade in support of the French endeavor, though that attempt was abandoned following the Battle of Solebay. A Dutch saying coined that year describes the Dutch people as redeloos, its government as radeloos, and the country as reddeloos. The cities of the coastal provinces of Holland, Zealand and Frisia underwent a political transition: the city governments were taken over by Orangists, opposed to the republican regime of the Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, ending the First Stadtholderless Period.
By late July however, the Dutch position had stabilised, with support from Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, Brandenburg-Prussia, and Spain; this was formalised in the August 1673 Treaty of the Hague, which Denmark joined in January 1674. Following further defeats at sea at the hands of the Dutch navy, the English, whose parliament was suspicious of King Charles's motives in his alliance with France, and with Charles himself wary of French domination of the Spanish Netherlands, settled a peace with the Dutch republic in the Treaty of Westminster in 1674. With England, Cologne, and Münster having made peace with the Dutch and with the war expanding into the Rhineland and Spain, French troops withdrew from the Dutch Republic, retaining only Grave and Maastricht. To offset these setbacks, Swedish forces in Swedish Pomerania attacked Brandenburg-Prussia in December 1674 after Louis threatened to withhold their subsidies; this sparked Swedish involvement in the 1675–1679 Scanian War and the Swedish-Brandenburg War whereby the Swedish army tied up the armies of Brandenburg and some minor German principalities plus the Danish army in the north.
From 1674 to 1678, the French armies managed to advance steadily in the southern Spanish Netherlands and along the Rhine, defeating the badly coordinated forces of the Grand Alliance with regularity. Eventually the heavy financial burdens of the war, along with the imminent prospect of England's reentry into the conflict on the side of the Dutch and their allies, convinced Louis XIV of France to make peace despite his advantageous military position. The resulting Peace of Nijmegen between France and the Grand Alliance left the Dutch Republic intact and France generously aggrandized in the Spanish Netherlands.

Situation in the Republic

During the Eighty Years' War there had been tension in the provinces between adherents of a government ruled by the burgher oligarchy, called regents, and those who favoured a government led by the Prince of Orange. These tensions had escalated in 1650 when William II, Prince of Orange had tried to conquer Amsterdam, the main bastion of the Regents of the De Graeff and Bicker clans. After negotiations, he succeeded in removing a number of his adversaries from office.
When William died from smallpox later that year, the republican party came back into power. The Act of Seclusion declared that they would not appoint his son, William III of Orange, or anybody else to the office of Stadholder, stating that a supreme head of government would be harmful to 'True Liberty'. Johan de Witt was appointed Grand Pensionary of Holland and led the States of Holland, the most important province within the Union.
The takeover by the regents did not go without protest from the Orangists, but with the economy booming and peace on the Union's borders they had little opportunity to remove the government from office. To appease the Orangists, and because of their own business interests, the Dutch Regents tried to keep the peace within Europe.

Foreign affairs

When the Republic fought for its independence from Spain, it had allied with France and England. In 1648, as part of the Peace of Westphalia, the Republic made peace with Austria and Spain. France had only made peace with Austria and continued fighting Spain until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. A condition of that peace was that Louis XIV would marry Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV of Spain. Maria Theresa would also renounce her share of the inheritance in exchange for a large dowry. The dowry, however, was never paid by the Spanish.
During the 1650s and 1660s the existing tensions between Dutch trade interests and English trade interests grew. The First Anglo-Dutch War was fought between the republics, resulting in a victory for the English. In a secret appendix to the Treaty of Westminster, the Act of Seclusion, Holland declared that it abolished the office of Stadholder and would never allow the States-General of the Netherlands to appoint a member of the House of Orange to the office of Captain-General. Oliver Cromwell, who was Lord Protector of England at that time, insisted on this condition because William II had assisted Charles I during the English Civil War. While supporters of the Dutch Regent favoured diminishing the influence of the House of Orange, by agreeing to this condition they intermingled internal and foreign affairs and infuriated the pro-Orange faction.
When Charles II was crowned king of England in 1660 during the Stuart Restoration, the Act of Seclusion was declared void, but to the dismay of Holland, Charles affirmed those clauses of the peace which negatively impacted Dutch trade interests.
English attacks on Dutch trade and colonies led to the Second Anglo-Dutch War. After the previous war Johan de Witt had supervised the expansion and improvement of the Dutch navy at the cost of neglecting the Dutch army. With the new fleet and the help of France, with whom they had allied again, the Dutch won a series of victories, culminating on the raid on the Medway, and put pressure on the English ally Münster. First Münster and then England were forced to make peace. While France had helped to put pressure on England and Münster they had not committed a major part of their army or fleet. After the death of Philip IV, Louis XIV claimed part of the inheritance for his wife. According to local law in parts of the Spanish Netherlands daughters of an earlier marriage took precedence before the sons of a later marriage. The way Louis XIV explained this, Maria Theresa, daughter of the first marriage of Philip IV, should inherit the Spanish Netherlands because Philip's son, Charles II was from Philip's second marriage. This went against the interests of the Dutch Republic, who preferred having a weak state as their neighbour to the south.
Because of this, Johan de Witt allied with England and Sweden, who had an army nearby in Germany, forming the Triple Alliance. In secret clauses of the treaty they agreed to use force if Louis XIV would not come to terms with Spain.

''Renversement des Alliances''

France made peace with Spain, but because the secret clauses of the Triple Alliance were soon made public, Louis XIV felt insulted by the "perfidious" Dutch, who according to him had broken faith. Immediately after the peace agreement, France took steps to isolate the Republic. Sweden and Münster were quickly bribed, but the English public distrusted Louis XIV. The English king, on the other hand, saw war with the Dutch as being in his best interests. He hoped that a defeat of the Republic would lead to the fall of the republican government so that his nephew, William III of Orange, could take power. A war would also be a good opportunity to crush the Dutch competition in trade and colonies. Additionally, Louis promised Charles a notable sum of money, so enabling him to rule without having to consult the English parliament.
In 1670, after the mediation of Charles' sister Henrietta Anne Stuart, wife of Louis's brother the Duc d'Orléans, France and England signed the secret Treaty of Dover.

To war

The Dutch were aware that negotiations between England and France were going on, but specific details were not known. Johan de Witt counted on the unpopularity among the English public of a war with a fellow Protestant nation and tried to improve relations with the French. The discussion on the issue of the Spanish Netherlands, however, yielded no consensus between the two countries. France saw the Rhine as its natural border and between France and the Rhine lay the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch Generality Lands. The Dutch felt threatened by the French ambitions. According to the French ambassador, the Dutch acted from the motto: Gallicus amicus, non vicinus, or "The Frenchman is a good friend, but a bad neighbour". The Dutch again reinforced their fleet, but made insufficient preparations for their army because of a shortage of money. The Regents also distrusted an army that had often been an instrument of the Orange party. With war becoming more and more likely, pressure increased on the Dutch government to appoint William III, who had not yet come of age, to the office of Stadtholder and Captain-General. In February 1672, Johan de Witt finally agreed to appoint William as Captain-General for the duration of a single war campaign.

War

On 12 March 1672, the English dispatched Robert Holmes to attack a Dutch trade convoy, the Smyrna fleet. In France, the Electorate of Cologne and the Bishopric of Münster declared war in April. In June, Louis XIV's army, led by Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé and Turenne bypassed the Dutch southern defence through the Spanish Netherlands, the possessions of Münster and Cologne and other French allies and invaded the Dutch from the east.
At the IJssel, a short battle was easily won by the French and Groenlo was taken. The whole of the Republic was left open to the French. Panic broke out in the cities in Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht. Lower and middle-class people revolted against the government and demanded the appointment of the Prince along with the punishment of those responsible for the war and the state of the army. Johan de Witt and several others resigned and the government of the Regents fell. Partisans of William III took over. One of William's first acts was to strike out the word 'honourably' from Johan de Witt's letter of resignation.